If you're anything like us, you'll have a strange obsession with keeping an eye on how many hours you've put into your favourite games. There's something oddly satisfying about seeing your Splatoon 2 hour count reach unhealthy numbers as you sit down for another night of inking the town neon pink - or is that just us?

Regardless, Nintendo has now issued an official list of the most-played Switch games of 2019, based on players' play time. To be as clear as possible, the ranking below is "based on time played on all Nintendo Switch consoles with a European Nintendo Account for which data sharing is enabled".

It's not surprising to see that nothing could topple Fortnite's immense popularity, but it is interesting to see just how important Zelda: Breath of the Wild is to the system. Still, despite being a launch title, the game is consistently being bought and played and seems to be serving as the Switch's killer app.

Pokémon Sword and Shield nearing the top ten is also an impressive feat considering they were only available for a month a half of 2019.

Does this list look anything like your own? Are you surprised by any of the games listed? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

Ryan can list the first 151 Pokémon all in order off by heart – a feat he calls his ‘party trick’ despite being such an introvert that he’d never be found anywhere near a party. He’d much rather just have a night in with Mario Kart and a pizza, and we can’t say we blame him.

@Justifier This, so darn much. It irks me to hell and back that I can't have as detailed a breakdown as I did on the 3DS. Wii U's log was not quite as good, but was still plenty better than what the Switch offers.

On topic, somewhat disappointed Fire Emblem Three Houses was not higher, but then again, compared to the games higher on the list, it did not sell as much, so I suppose it is proportional. I am somewhat surprised Link's Awakening managed to squeeze on the list due to the fact the game is short, and disappointed also that Luigi's Mansion 3 did not make it but overall, not too surprising.

@MS7000@justifier the most annoying this is, that after downloading the Parental Controls app, there's a full comprehensive play log to view. I can see precisely how long my son has spent on youtube, Yoshi's Crafted World etc, with full daily breakdowns, monthly summaries etc. Baffling!

@Scottwood101 I have downloaded the Parental Controls App but as someone who does not have kids it is annoying that I have to open up a separate app just to view breakdowns of this information. Not to mention that it still is not as useful as the 3DS log.

For example the monthly breakdowns for most played games based on how many days of the month they were played, not hours (EDIT: There is also a time section, but it seems to show a coloured bar rather than a figure; the only figure shown is average playtime per day). This also builds into the fact that I cannot see total playtime for individual months or years or for individual games during those periods. The Wii U also allowed this, though it was not as easy to collate all the information.

If there is something I am missing then I will happily retract some of these arguments, but I still argue that it is dumb that I have to download something separate when it should be all in one place.

@SquareOneMJ I know right? I'm not even a huge Tetris fan and even I invested like 50 hours into Tetris 99. Finding a match online is pretty much instant so I think there's a good amount of players playing it. Seems kind of weird to not see it on the list.

My two most played games are Rocket League (395 hours) and Splatoon 2 (295 hours). The latter is a strange one as it feels like I've hardly played it and can go months between sessions. I think it's just because I played the original so much. It is my most played game ever, with over 1000 hours logged on that bad boy.

And people wonder why would anyone play fortnite on switch, if only they could drop out of their high horse and realize that framerates, while it obviously matters a lot and so is resolution, playing the game is top priority.

@matdub@scottwood101
Exactly right. I bought Fifa 18 and it was ok (much better than 13 on the WiiU when that launched). Skipped 19 cos I don't need to buy every year, and was planning on buying 20 to get two years worth of improvements. When they said it was legacy I skipped it, so now just play 18 every now and then. If they make a proper version again I'll maybe upgrade but until then stick with what I have.

Other than BotW and Diablo, I haven't played anything on this list on my Switch for any significant length of time--played plenty of Smash on my son's Switch though. My top game is MHGU with nearly 500 hours, and second is Octopath with 180 hours.

I can tell from my personal experience that Nintendo's hour tracking is broken. Around October-November, I was traveling and my Switch was rarely connected to the internet. So, while the console was raking up durations, the online report showed very low hour count at the end of the month.

I mean, I can take it that 5 games out of 20 are from 2019 because their releases were among the most expected ones, but I have to notice that Pokémon Sword and Shield was released on the 2nd half of November.

Now, how the hell is it possible that it's been one of the most played games in the whole year? Sorry, I just don't believe that.

@OorWullie hey, when you first replied to me I was too embarrassed to tell you my Tetris 99 playtime... but now I’m comfortable telling you I’ve played for 145+ hours! When I was at a Christmas market in Belfast I saw some Oor Wullie merchandise and immediately thought of you!

@electrolite77 personally, it isn't my piece of cake, but I have no doubts lost of people love it. My doubts are about the short time it took to get in the top 20, as if other games aren't being played at all. Nintendo must not get lots of usage data.

Mine are (in order): Digimon, Pokemon Shield, Splatoon 2 way out in front. All the rest are an hour here, 3 hours there, etc. Probably doesn't help that I have a Switch backlog that's as tall as I am, and an Xbox One and PS4 backlog twice as tall as that. At this rate I might as well just get a new hobby.

@electrolite77The Fortnite hate-train on this site is ridiculous. I myself am not a huge fan, but I understand the appeal and don't go accusing all Fortnite players of being degenerate 8 year-olds or the likes.

Heck, even I had to log-in just to see that Star Wars Episode IX cross-over event, which was actually quite cool (and better than the actual movie).

I’ve never played it, but I don’t get the criticism of it. If others want to play it and enjoy it they’re welcome to. Same way that I’m not into e.g. COD or Battlefield or Minecraft or Overwatch, each to their own.